Get it out yourself

An old rule of politics is, if at all possible, when you discover that you're about to get hit with a negative story, try to get out in front of it with a reform.

Mayor Daley used to do that all the time with the Tribune. Trib reporters would file a Freedom of Information Act request, and a team in the mayor's office would then carefully review the documents to see if there were any potential problems. The deficiencies would then be corrected and the Trib would either have to write about how the mayor reformed an agency, or ignore the story altogether. Eventually, the Trib decided to shotgun dozens of FOIAs at once to confuse the opposition.

Anyway, that story came to mind when I read the Sun-Times this morning.

When employees with Illinois Property Asset Management learned they won a $25 million state contract, they went out to dinner to celebrate.

They spent $495. And taxpayers picked up the check.

That "celebration dinner," as it appeared on an expense report, is among $35,000 in business and travel expenses by the firm now under fire by Gov. Blagojevich's administration -- which hired the politically connected company in January 2004 to save taxpayers money by assessing state property holdings and space needs.

So, how did this problem come to light?

Administration officials said Tuesday that these and other bills have prompted an internal investigation and have cast a black mark on a company they insist is filling a vital cost-saving role as the state struggles to balance its budget. [...]

The investigation should be done by mid-May. The company will be given a chance to dispute the findings.

And I love this part.

(GOMB spokesperson Becky) Carroll said she could not say how the Illinois Property Asset Management expenses came to the governor's attention. Nobody with the company or the state is under criminal investigation, she added.

Interesting.